This season’s shows
Every major Florida boat show and the dates their organizers have set for the 2026 season — Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, kept current.
See the shows →Florida’s living boat-show guide
Every Florida boat show, in one place.
For a generation, Central Florida’s boating community gathered each year at the Orange County Convention Center for the Central Florida Boat Show. That passion is bigger than ever today — from Orlando to Miami, Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach. boatshowflorida.com carries it forward: a living guide to the boats, the dates and the shows, refreshed every season, with the heritage that started it all.
“Bigger is better” — the show’s old headline, and still true of Florida boating.
Start here
What you’ll find here
One place for Florida’s boat shows — where to go this season, the story of the show that put Central Florida on the map, and how to make the most of a day on the docks.
The heritage
From a first show around 1968 to a Central-Florida institution — the story of the Central Florida Boat Show, and how the tradition lives on.
The story →The original show
The Central Florida Boat Show at the convention center: the boats, the crowds and the details that made it a fixture of Orlando’s winter.
The original show →1968 → this season
A tradition that keeps growing
c. 1968
The Central Florida Boat Show begins. By the show’s own numbering — the 34th edition ran in 2001 — the tradition traces back to around 1968 (an estimate from the sequence, not a documented founding date).
2001
The 34th Annual show runs March 1–4 at the Orange County Convention Center. Adults $7, children free, and a mascot named Saul T. Dog works a floor of 300,000 square feet.
2006
The 39th Annual show, March 2–5, fills the “new” convention center on Universal Boulevard — cruisers, center-consoles and pontoons, a Kids Zone and fishing clinics on the floor.
2011
Two shows a year now: the winter Central Florida Boat Show and the summer Hot Summer Boat Show, run together as “the largest and longest running boat shows in Central Florida.”
Today
Central Florida’s boat show still fills the same convention center each year — now the Orlando Boat Show — and the state’s calendar runs from Miami to Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach, bigger than ever. See them all in this season’s guide.
This season & on
boatshowflorida.com keeps pace: a living guide, refreshed every season with the latest dates, venues and shows worth your weekend.
An independent guide to Florida’s boat shows — we love these shows, we just don’t run them. Not affiliated with the Orlando Boat Show, the Marine Industry Association of Central Florida, or any organizer, and we sell no tickets; for official dates and tickets we link you straight to each show’s own site.